


Everything We Do

by NY_shi



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, dammit i just love them so much
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:33:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,752
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27325852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NY_shi/pseuds/NY_shi
Summary: First question.Do they know when they've fallen in love?The signs are obvious: blood, and flowers, lots of flowers. It hurts, but what doesn't?Next question.Do they know who they are in love with?Yes. But. How could it be? How could it be Ivan—Commie bastard. Picking a fight, huh? I'll kill him.Alfred—Capitalist scum. An idiot. Fucking immature.No more questions. They know how it started:With a kiss.
Relationships: America/Russia (Hetalia), RusAme - Relationship, bit of fruk, bit of pruaus
Kudos: 28





	Everything We Do

_"Your handwriting. The way you walk. Which china pattern you choose. It's all giving you away. Everything you do shows your hand. Everything is a self-portrait. Everything is a diary."_

_-Chuck Palahniuk_

  
  
  


1.

The sun is about to set: everything is orange and pink and soft and glowing. But Ivan is sad, he is going back to Russia that night, and he knows it's going to be cold and lonely. The field of sunflowers he stands in comforts him. They are huge, yellow flowers that crowd protectively around him, almost as tall as he is, with bright green leaves that brush up against his arms. He is wearing his scarf and long sleeves, so he only feels the breeze against his face, and a bit of his neck. The leaves rustle, his white hair flattens against his head and gets into his eyes. He smiles in a long time.

"Ivan!"

He startles. The breeze is dying. His fears rush back into him, climbing into his small, fragile body, into his wide, stricken eyes. He doesn't want to leave yet. He spins around, desperately committing everything to memory. The colours, the shapes, the warmth, the gentle sounds. Then he freezes. He is not alone.

There is someone else not far away, a bit shorter than him, judging from how the sunflowers cover him so. But he doesn't care about that. He cares about how the other boy creeps slowly toward him, and he can only see bright blue eyes—the colour of a beautiful sky. He cannot look away, cannot hear anything except for his wild, beating heart.

The boy smiles, and time slows to a mere trickle. Ivan feels less afraid, as if that smile alone slayed a number of his growing demons. He has honey blond hair, and a cowlick—Ivan thinks he must be adored by the adults, by everyone. Indeed, his very presence is magnetic, roving eyes, unfazed by his cold exterior, moving him to a stunned, heart-throbbing, teary-eyed state. But he cannot cry, or he will be beaten. It is easier than he expected.

This boy is a witch. Everything about the way he talks makes him so. Effortlessly charming (must be a spell, no doubt.), he hears the tone before the words, and sweet (nothing like him at all. how can that be? they are about the same age.), sweet and rich like honey. Ivan swallows. Were they right? This land is unholy, full of undesirable temptations and corruption. Yet it is more beautiful than he could have ever imagined, and he is tempted all the same. But he doesn't move. He knows the consequences.

The boy points at himself. "Alfred," he says.

Ivan looks down at his shoes. The other boy is less than a step away. His people are waiting for him, at the edge, they frowned when he asked to go in, but had no reason to reject him. "But only for a while," they told him. He didn't need to be told twice.

A while had gone by in the blink of an eye. Ivan despaired. Otherwise, why else would he fraternise with the enemy? This boy, starkly different, spoiled, innocent, could never be associated with him. He would despise it. 

"Ivan," he replies coldly. He spares him a glance. He was on borrowed time. Whatever happened now had to be over, fast.

Miraculously, the boy understands although he had not uttered another word. He presses his soft pink lips to Ivan's chapped ones—from the cold, biting them; from despair. 

He is warm, is all Ivan has time to think of before it is over, and he is left with a bit of saliva smudged across his lips like lipstick, when he licks it away it tastes sweet, like sugar.

When he sees the boy grinning at him, not so much curiously as cockily, and he wipes his mouth with the back of his glove and he leaves, scarf billowing behind him. 

The disconnect is painful, like dislocating a shoulder, but of course Ivan is no stranger to that. He still has the strength to walk away with his pride, with his eyes dry, with his fists clenched in anger.

However he does not have the guts to admit that he liked it. Or that he regrets not kissing back and not looking back, even if all he sees is the sunset, and the yellow flowers, even if Alfred is no longer there.

He should have looked back. 

Instead he chokes down his tears, saves them for when he is in bed, alone, in the dark. Only then he would let guilt burden him, shatter his soul and then pick up the fragments and glue them back. He sits where they instruct him to, in a seat of the plane, and closes his eyes. It will be dark soon, he tells himself. He is both fearful and comforted.

He can see Alfred behind his closed eyes. He is the sun. But the sun does not exist where he is from. Its light fades, and in its place is the relentless flurry of snow, blinding and merciless, dictating the sheer resilience he needs to survive. It turns out he is determined enough. He is bitter enough. He walks upon it as it comes down like torrential rain in the other parts of the world. He steps and storms. His footprints are clear as ink on paper for a glorious second, then the snow erases them again. 

  
  
  
  
  


2.

Fate brings them together again, at their first World Meeting. Ivan convinces himself it is inevitable. They are rising powers, dominance has to be asserted at once, and clearly. It does not go as he thinks it would. 

For one, he— _America_ —fights like a kid. Childishly, an eye for an eye, and nowhere above hurling underhanded insults across the table. He didn't plan on engaging in such shameless acts, but to suffer in silence? Absolutely not. He hurls them back, harder, in fistfuls.

He is riled up, America did this to him. They argue back and forth about everything and anything. It's as if they've moved back in time, even the tiniest scratch proved fatal. The simple act of glancing, smirking, scowling, was enough to set either of them off, it soon became a race to see who could start first and finish last, emerge triumphant from the other's enraged silence. A little game, a bet, with their pride on the line. Again, Ivan does not want to lose his pride. It is all he has against America, who wears glasses now. 

Has he changed in any other way that is as equally noticeable? Ivan's answer is yes. He is less captivating, less sweet. And no. He still affects him more than he would ever admit, he is still a brat, his eyes are still blue—the glasses did nothing. Ivan still wants to cry, but he also wants to break America in half. America makes it easier for him to forget that he was his first kiss. That alone upsets him although he is not confident why. 

America is taller now, stronger, with his tanned skin and toned muscles and the ability to rattle the entire tabletop with the pounding of a single fist. His hair is slicked away from his face, he carries a gun. 

However Ivan is still taller than him, he must remind him of that.

"And then what?" America taunts him, tempts him, dangles something in front of him—in front of the nasty curl of his lips to reveal sharp canines—his memories, the soft light, the kiss; it was not one-sided, Ivan had allowed it to happen, his sole comfort when life punished him for being alive. It sits snugly in the palm of America's hand. America crushes it. Seeing as Ivan does not offer a reply, America prattles on.

"Weak—"

Ivan punches him in the mouth, across the table. Blood trickles out, down the corner of his bruised lip. He doesn't wipe it off. America grabs Ivan and hits him back, he breaks his nose. Ivan uses this opportunity to blink away the droplets of water in his eyes. He fists America's jacket.

Everyone else around them is trying to stop them. 

They cannot be stopped. Ivan takes out his hurt on America. America doesn't understand, he thinks. It's not surprising, he often thinks that. He's just a brat, too big for his britches. He should just go back to England. But most important of all, why wouldn't he cry? 

His glasses skids across the floor. Ivan knows from the look in America's eyes he's struck a nerve. America's leaps across the table, once standing stoically between them, now standing behind them, the only thing in the room that isn't broken. The other Nations have turned to Plan B: salvaging the unscathed chairs by bringing them out of the room, far away from the two rampaging countries.

There is blood on the floors, the table. Some are cute droplets, others are forcefully smudged and smeared and drip-dripping down the edges. They are both tired and pretending they can't be hurt by a few broken bones, twisted elbows, sprained ankles. No one else is around, they've given up and gone home. As Ivan glares at America, his eyes quickly scan the perimeter—not a soul was to be seen. It would be silent as a cemetery if not for their ragged gasps and pants, as they each try to catch their breaths.

America has his gun out, but Ivan does not want to use his yet. He has his back to the wall, his ankle useless and sprawled across the floor in front of him. America has hurt his arm, it would be hard to shoot him even from this distance. Ivan can see it shaking no matter how he attempts to hide the tremors.

Unfortunately, they had come to a sort of stalemate. 

America's glasses are in the far corner of the room, the glass shattered, and Ivan's scarf the other corner, ripped off his neck after an unsuccessful attempt at strangulation. Ivan stitches up his neck every other day, he can't be hurt anymore. 

But the America now isn't stupid enough to think that Ivan would ever be unarmed. He snarls at him, spitting blood and saliva as he warns him and threatens him to stop playing around. Ivan has never played around with anyone. Unless that kiss—would that be considered playing around? Years later, here he is, still doing as America claimed. But he refuses to regret it, as pathetic as it was, it was his hope, the light in the darkness that surrounded him constantly. His light in the darkness that followed him, chased him, hunted him down and haunted his dreams. It cannot be a futile light. Such a light can be extinguished at any time, but he still carries it around. He knows it's there. 

He can feel his gun in his pocket, digging into his leg, an uncomfortable sensation. His hand is just beside it. America presses the barrel to his forehead, slick with drying blood mixed with sticky sweat. Ivan's fingers trace up the magazine to the trigger. The gun is still hidden. He doesn't want to shoot. 

"Are you trying to start a war with me, America?"

The barrel trembles against his skin. Ivan wishes he couldn't feel it. There is something America doesn't like about what he's said. But his grip shifts, and his fingers clench tighter around the weapon.

"What about you, huh?" Always trying to be the tougher guy.

Ivan pulls his fingers away. He doesn't want to shoot him, or even pretend to. His mouth tastes like blood, the air smells like blood. He just wants to leave the room. His subconsciousness is succeeding. He can feel his eyelids getting heavy, his head tilting back and matted hair sliding down the wall, painting red over the white paint. He doesn't answer America, because he's not the Ivan, broken and lying on the floor of the meeting room, anymore. He's the Ivan in the field of flowers, afraid to kiss back, afraid to leave.

Perhaps some time passes in between, but he isn't sure how much. In this sense, time is nothing like money.

He is suddenly pulled back into the present by the sheer impossibility of America's mouth on his, again. It is hot and this alone makes it starkly different from its predecessor, just wet enough, and Ivan's lips just pliant enough for America to work his tongue in. Ivan tries to kiss him back this time, slowly, softly. America doesn't bite his lips like he imagined he would. Instead he simply grazes his teeth against the tender skin, and Ivan gasps all the same.

"Ivan. Don't leave."

It feels like a dream. Ivan mumbles, " _Alfred_ …" He realises only after that he misses saying it.

America presses his body against his. Ivan will remember this heat for the rest of his life. And the sound of the gun in America's hand, clattering to the ground. 

"Your arm…" Ivan says, glassy-eyed. It is all he can think of at the moment. His name, his arm, what else? He blinks, he squints. He can make out a bright blue, staring back at him. Alfred's eyes, without the glasses. Is he sad? That's something new to be afraid of.

Ivan's eyes close. He leaves.  
  
  
  


3.

They are at war. The Cold War, as it was known all over. Ivan agrees. It is definitely cold. He's not young anymore, not even in his human body. He knows better: they're not meant to be. They can never be happy like France and England are. Arthur always calls France by name, when they aren't bickering, it was never just 'France', and a coy ' _Angleterre'_ is as good a pet name as any.

Meanwhile, America and Ivan are on the brink of a nuclear crisis. Ivan has not slept in days. Ironically, he has fallen back on the insane memories of kissing his enemy to keep himself sane.

Cuba doesn't like being caught up between them. "The sexual tensions are unnerving, Mister Russia," he says of the situation at hand during a break after five hours straight of talking—Russia doesn't speak, he fiddles with the ends of his scarf under the table—one day. Cuba's government has a lot to say to him. Yet he still finds the time for this chit-chat. Ivan denies it without batting an eye. "There's no such thing," he assures him. "America is miles away, not to mention, our enemy. Please sit down. The meeting is about to resume."

They discuss many things. Ivan doesn't hear any of them. Across him, Cuba is nodding every so often, occasionally speaking to the audience, seeming concerned but not anxious. His government is less calm. Ivan watches him speak of the missiles, their positions, placement. Then he speaks of America. Ivan does not want to hear what he thinks America is going to do or when he is going to do it. He wants to leave but Cuba glances over at him every time he mentions America, as if he knows something he doesn't.

Not me, Ivan thinks. Cuba is, not me.

This is about the time he feels it. A vicious choking in his throat. He coughs as lightly as possible, gripping his scarf where no one can see. Cuba stops talking about the U-2 spy planes. Ivan excuses himself non-verbally. He manages to keep whatever's in his throat down while walking as fast as he can to the restrooms. Luckily, it is empty—of course, he doesn't expect anyone else in there less than an hour to midnight. But he cannot afford to take any chances. He grabs one of those annoying yellow signs that display: Out Of Order, hangs it outside. and then proceeded to lock the door and turn off all the lights.

He goes straight into a cubicle immediately after and locks that too. He pulls his hand away from his mouth and unclenches his jaw and he gags. He doubles over on his knees. The wounds in his neck burn.

In the dark he makes out flowers. There is a bit of blood dotting the petals, but they are unmistakably sunflowers. Huge and yellow. All of them. He coughed them up. He flushed them down.

His mouth tastes of blood. His lungs and throat feel like he has been coughing and wheezing for months. But nothing could compare to the terrible, exquisite ache in his chest. He claws at it through his clothes, trying to locate the very root of his suffering and rip it from his body, only for it to shift and avoid his desperate grasps in the nick of time, always one step ahead. His muffled cries in agony echoed about the darkness for an indefinite amount of time.

He knows this disease. It is the most severe case of love-sickness, and not only that, it is also the rarest, and thus there has been no known cure for decades. Can countries die? Ivan need only think of self-proclaimed "awesome" Prussia, telling Austria, to forget him. He knows it is something he should be afraid of.

The little bits of the story Ivan was told ultimately came from Japan, whose camera had been placed in the most secluded corner of the small library next to the meeting room.

Nobody else had seen the recording, so Ivan supposed, everyone had their own version of that night. He wasn't sure whose whispers Belarus heard. Rumours flowed like a river around him, he was aware, but he was often not privy to most. Head bowed, frowning and eyes flitting about the floor, she even seemed unwilling to speak a word of it. For the first time, the explanation for her sour mood was not related to him. 

In his mind, Prussia stands by the window, hair shining like a halo in the moonlight. A light drizzle begins outside, blurring the view from beyond the glass. His hand presses up against the icy-cold metal of the frame, he turns, losing interest in the world outside. Because someone else has entered the room—Austria, brow creased, unsmiling. Austria stands by the door, meeting Prussia's burning red eyes with a stone-cold gaze. He closes the door behind him, isolating them from the rest of the world. There were bookshelves all around them, reaching from the floor all the way to the ceiling, tall and stoic, but surely even they shook a little when Prussia spoke, humourlessly, softly and only to Austria, of his imminent death. 

"I'm to be dissolved at the first hour of tomorrow," he says, watching Austria's expression with an anxious heart. He would have liked the truth to be easier to admit, but his throat would only permit sounds in C minor. Austria barely twitches an eyebrow, but his eyes are the darkest shade of violet Prussia has ever seen, and will probably ever see. He would bet everything on that. They are almost black, shadowed by the slight dip of his thick lashes. "Please forget me after today."

This is not the worst of it, not yet. The climax remains high atop the proudest mountain, unclimbed. Austria maintains a bitter stare, chipping away at Prussia's self-confidence. He almost thinks he wouldn't go there after all. When Austria speaks, his tone could slice heavy rocks like softened butter. Prussia flinches, blinking, his skin is on fire, and he can't tell exactly where hurts the most. 

"No. How can I?" It sounds every bit accusatory as it is probably intended.

Austria's fists are clenched, his knuckles as white as Prussia's hair. Then he starts to crack.

"We only have two hours left. How?"

The rain is coming down in buckets now. It shouldn't be possible to notice the involuntary tremble of his voice as he asks Prussia again: "how?", but Prussia does. He steps towards Austria, but Austria steps back in turn, his back hitting the door, rattling it in its frame. Prussia stops, fearful that Austria, in favouring his broken pride, rushes out of the room. Then everything would be lost. 

Austria's eyes shimmer with unshed tears. 

"I'm sorry," Prussia says, it is the only thing he can say. 

Austria shakes his head. His hair is styled and gelled, it is not startled by the sudden motion, but his cowlick betrays him, and it is this sort of classic Austria adorable-ness that never fails to get to Prussia, stabbing him where it hurts. He has never felt more vulnerable than now.

But it is Austria who weeps first, belatedly sobbing, "No...no…" into his hand. He turns away from Prussia, hiding his face in the shadows of the room. Prussia rushes over at once, to hold his crying lover as close as he can, to be as close as possible to him, so close that it would be impossible to exaggerate their closeness—it was a selfish reaction, he wanted to assure himself that Austria would be fine after he was gone.

He forgot Austria had always been the selfish one. 

When Prussia was well within arms-length, Austria's hands left his face and reached out to violently pull Prussia towards him. His hands grip his face, his hair, the back of his neck with bruising force, as he turns to pin Prussia against the door, kissing him like it was all they needed to survive—like it was all Austria needed. 

Prussia thought his heart had stopped, that this was his dying brain firing up random nerve impulses or whatever to generate the perfect kiss scene of an aggressive Austria and him, he thought truly, he would never breathe again, he was already where heaven should be. He kissed Austria back, because no matter what, he would never let Austria do everything himself, because Austria said, "I want you, Gilbert. I want you so much—I only want you forever and ever.", while hot tears ran down his cheeks, and Prussia had to let him know that he wanted Austria more and longer than Austria wanted him.

He did breathe again, they were on the floor, panting, Prussia can barely see straight. The warm weight above him was Austria, who doesn't protest when he slips his glasses off and goes to kiss his lips again. The warm teardrops hitting his cheeks like slaps to his face and sliding down to his neck are also Austria's, and Prussia knows he must never let himself cry now, in front of Austria.

What is pride in the face of death? It is the first and heaviest baggage to be cast into the sea, to be abandoned—smashed to bits against the rocks below, even this means if it can never be put together again. Because it is a luxury only the young naive fools can indulge in. Austria knows he can no longer afford it—the price is simply too extravagant—when time can be measured in hours, minutes, and then seconds. Prussia was a sinking ship that can't be saved. He could only watch from the safety of the shore, devastation spilling from his eyes, and regret. Everything he does now can only be done regretfully, painfully. 

He tries to give his heart to Prussia, bit by bit, certain he will have no use for it after today.

Prussia, who has always been fond of spoiling him, lets him. He calls him 'Roderich' over and over again like a mantra, strokes his hair and breathes in the same air as him. 

Here, Belarus stops abruptly. She looks dismayed for some reason, as if expecting something but not getting it. Ivan tells her it's alright, he doesn't need to hear the rest. Then she surprises him. "Big brother, America told me."

"Eh." He regrets opening his mouth immediately. Belarus notices the barely concealed alarm in his voice. 

"Something wrong, Big Brother?"

"No, not really."

It's futile, Belarus knows he is lying. She sighs. "Just for the record, I don't approve. But—I was told—that it's not for me to decide."

She pauses again, Ivan can see she isn't done talking. Belarus paces the room anxiously, biting her thumb. When she finally stops, she declares with a stamp of a boot, "Fuck! I do **not** like him! But! He said, if you want to know what else happened, you have to ask him."

She waits, studying his expression. "You don't want to know either, right?"

"Don't worry, Belarus, I don't want to know."

She is instantly flooded with relief: she smiles, and does a twirl as she prances out of the room. She doesn't think that Ivan wanted to know.

"They fucked." Was America's crude reply. "Want to try it too?"

Ivan almost throws his cup of coffee at him. But America seems different somehow, the way he said it was too smooth, even for him, that it sounded like something he had practiced to get perfect. His tone even, his expression barely changed, he is calm as far as the eye can see, and that's what bothers Ivan. 

"No." He says, uncomfortably. He's very bothered. He waits for America to laugh, to say it was some kind of joke, but he never does.

What America does is far worse.

Right before he leaves, when Ivan least expects it, he reaches across to grab his scarf, effectively narrowing what Ivan would consider as the appropriate distance between them. 

America kisses him on the cheek. "Goodbye Russia."

  
  
  
  


4.

Ivan knows that Prussia comes back sometimes. Once or twice a month, a few days at a time, Austria loses his agitated scowl, he seems happier, more prone to smiling. Once, he said that Germany had become awesome-r so casually no one uttered a word for five minutes. Even North Italy was slow to ruin the moment.

He was supposed to be madly in love with someone. He thinks for the billionth time that it cannot be America. They are at war, he reasons. It's not possible, they despise each other and everything the other stands for. It has never been made more clear, more known. 

It is also clear that that person does not love him back. Or they do not know and thus cannot return his feelings. It is sheer madness. He would just die. Isn't that for the better? His people are suffering, his neighbours are suffering. This is his fault. America was right about this. He was weak, easily tempted and useless.

He has about three months more. His days are numbered. He feels angry again. He should at least win this war before some flowers choke him to death. One foot into the grave, does he regret choosing to wander into the fields? Still no. He sobs soundlessly, shoulders heaving with great effort, and one last sunflower falls from his lips. It is smaller than the others and there is almost no blood on its petals. Ivan decides to keep it.

He goes back out, sits back down opposite Cuba, who eyes him questioningly, but stops when Ivan nods at everything he says. His leaders are less eager to retaliate aggressively, but that is how Ivan nods anyway. He would speak, but the flower in his coat pocket keeps him quiet as a mouse. 

Some time passes. No one has fired any missiles. Instead, the office gets a red telephone. America's leader is on the other end. He wants to go to Cuba to see the missiles, but he is denied permission. He has to remain in Russia. The telephone rings at odd timings. It rings more than three times every day. His leader is constantly attending to the phone—this means less meetings, which is a good thing, but Ivan grows increasingly curious.

One night, he stays behind in the office after his leader hangs up the phone. He had bugged it, and his leader suspects nothing. His people are clever in this aspect. He creeps out from behind the curtains and toward the table. Then the telephone rings all of a sudden, shrill as any morning alarm, loud enough to raise the dead. Ivan panics, and picks it up as fast as he can move. He waits. There are no footsteps rushing back into the room. 

Ivan sighs in relief. Far too early, it seemed.

The next second, a voice speaks from the other end of the line. "Ivan. Ivan, I know you're there."

Ivan would have smashed the phone to bits if he had not set the ear piece onto the table after thoughtlessly picking it up. He does not reply, and lets America continue to speak. 

His voice has lost its mocking edge over the phone, something which Ivan would like to quietly appreciate for a while more.

"Ivan. A compromise has been reached. There won't be any war."

Ivan stares at the phone. No. NO. Why should he go quietly? Why should he suffer for so long only to die inevitably? America can't know of his situation. "So?" he asks nonchalantly. He would have said more, but he can feel more flowers spilling from his mouth. He can't hear anything America says. His lungs feel like a dozen flowers trying to grow within a single flower pot.

There are roses now, all red and perfectly-shaped. He almost doesn't notice the blood until it leaks into the white of the carpet.

The first person he thinks of is America. He reaches for the phone, hacking and retching, his heart feels like it is being split open by an axe—but he misses, and the receiver drops to the ground. He can hear America's voice with clarity now:

"Ivan! Are you okay? I'm comin' over right now!"

Shut up, he thinks. I'm dying and it hurts so shut the fuck up.

There are yellow and red flowers strewn across the floor and carpet, lying in their own pools of blood, as if freshly murdered. Ivan leans against the leg of the table—it is wood, wholly unsatisfying because he can't feel the artificial chill seep into him and his body heat out of him.

America must have already been in Russia. How else did he arrive so quickly to throw open the unlocked door and take in the pitiful sight that Ivan was reduced to? 

Ivan was ashamed. He did not raise his head in acknowledgement when America approached him. 

"The Hanahaki disease," America murmurs, swiping away the blood around his paling lips.

Ivan is surprised he knows. "What?"

America simply laughs. "What? I've been having it too." He fingers a rose petal. "Those fucking flowers get bigger and bigger. I never would've dreamt of a bigger chamomile. It's crazy how they can still look like this when you finally spit them out."

Ivan stares at him incredulously. "You—"

"It happens on and off, but...This is my fourth month in a row, Ivan. I'm on borrowed time. Won't you admit it? Unless there is someone else you love…"

Ivan shakes his head. "They're roses after all."

"You know you always look like you're about to cry, but I've never actually seen you." America whispers—unnecessary, but it makes Ivan's heart skip a beat like a twelve-year-old schoolgirl when her crush looks her way. 

"I won't make you cry any more," he promises. "I love you, Ivan."

"Alfred, I...love you too," Ivan replies, he kisses him first, sliding his tongue against his, feeling his airways open and his lungs once again devoid of flowering plants.

"Why do you love me?" Ivan asks when they part for air.

"Because you seemed like you needed to be. Also because of your eyes. When I kissed you the first time, they were like amethyst gems, sparkling, pretty."

America smiles, bittersweet. "It's ironic. You seem entirely out of it, lacking in any spatial awareness whatsoever. And yet your eyes are amethyst gems."

Ivan looks away, feeling the heat creep into his face.

"You like that I'm lonely and detached? Are you a pervert?"

"Well, not just that, of course. It's not good to be sad all the time. I also wanted to make you smile. I wanted to make you blind with rage and stun you beyond words. I want you to need me like plants need the sun. But then unconsciously, just like that, I fell for you first."

"You're despicable as I thought."

"I was eight, human years. Won't you forgive me?" Alfred asks.

"Never." Ivan sighs against his ear. Time. They had a lot of time now. He would forgive him slowly, drop by drop, petal by petal.

  
  
  
  
  


5.

Alfred shoulders the burden of great expectations from a young age. It happened inadvertently, as he likes to think, because how can he blame his only family?

Arthur is fussy, but gives in quickly if he plays his cards right. Francis is in love with Arthur. Both of them fought a lot when he was younger, and they wouldn't notice if he ran out to the fields with Matthew. Their arguments were repetitive, starting with the small things they never used to mind: Arthur forgetting a certain date, or Francis kissing him in public—Oh how Arthur loved to hate that. Unfortunately, it only got worse from there.

There were times when Arthur couldn't see Matthew: it wasn't his fault, and Francis knew that. He knew that and antagonised him all the same. It ended with Francis saying he loves Arthur and Arthur saying he regrets loving Francis. Francis ends up hurt, he bites his lip until it bleeds then leaves the room. Arthur stays where he is, aware of how he is responsible for that: Before, Francis tried to kiss him, after they ran out of names to call each other, and Arthur had taken the opportunity to slap him. Arthur has yet to apologise or make up for it, and knowing Francis, Arthur will probably never have to.

Matthew doesn't blame him for anything. But he also keeps calling him lucky. He says if their parents split he should go with England. England, he said. Before that Alfred thought it was impossible to not like Matthew. He doesn't bring Matthew with him to the fields that day.

That day he met the saddest-looking boy he had ever seen and thought he would ever see. That day he kissed him like how he would kiss a girl. That day he wondered long and hard if it was love, if love at first sight was this real after all, if the longing in Ivan's eyes could also be called the same.

Francis and Arthur ended up splitting. It happened when Arthur stopped wearing their wedding ring. Francis allowed both of them the easy way out, so they split. It was not an official affair, Alfred doubts either of them had ever thought about it before it became clear it was about to happen. Alfred knows Matthew feels dreadfully apologetic about being right.

The first night, Matthew calls Alfred, tearful, slipping 'sorry' into his sentences every time he has to take a breath through his mouth, explaining that he can't sleep because Francis has been crying—he looks awful, I'm sorry—and that he has barely eaten. Alfred tells him how Arthur spent the whole day staring out the window and drowning himself in tea enough to fill the entire Channel. He doesn't tell him that when he asked if he was okay, Arthur told him he was proud of him, proud that he wasn't anything like him.

During his country's revolution, he harbours a deep hatred for Arthur. He keeps thinking about that night, and he tells himself that he must win. He must win this war. Francis understands this too: he helps him free himself from Arthur. When the war was won and lost, Arthur doesn't look at him, he looks at Francis, and apologises. He says, " _Désolé_." Alfred doesn't have to look at Francis to picture his shock: wide eyes, lips moving quickly but no words are coming out. Arthur leaves, and Francis drops to a crouch and buries his face in his arms. He doesn't get up for a long time, and Alfred can't help but think, how silently Francis cries. But the one to comfort Francis isn't him, so he stands by his side in what he hopes is a supportive type of silence.

A few more wars later, the tensions between them—all of them—have simmered down. When Alfred visits Arthur on his birthday, he finds that he throws the roses Francis sends into a vase instead of into the trash. One day, he finds the gold band around Arthur's ring finger again, and he wonders how long it has been there, and then on a darker note, how long it will stay. But he is immediately reassured when Matthew phones him that night, entirely unapologetic, saying that Thanksgiving dinner will be at Francis' house, and that 'Mama' was the one who suggested it. Alfred knows why Arthur has been hiding behind the newspapers all morning, and he tells Matthew he can't wait. 

Just when life was going good, Ivan enters his life again: tall, broad-shouldered and an attractiveness level of positively **smouldering** , all the while preserving the same deep longing in his eyes, the same white scarf to match his hair. But this Ivan is now his enemy.

Alfred is vexed, in the same way Sisyphus probably feels when the rock rolls back down just as it reaches the top. 

He still does not know if the one Ivan wants is him. And by the way Ivan speaks and moves, neither does he. For this, he blames Ivan, but even that is hard, he ends up kissing him again. It is something he wishes he can regret. He wishes this as he coughs up red flowers, as he washes blood from his mouth, from his hands.

It takes him a while more to realise that they would not be spared from war, that eternal peace is a deluded sort of wishful thinking. He goes to Japan's house, and struggles to seem less desperate. But he leaves with hope. He tells bits to the Baltic states, to Poland. Not long after, Belarus corners him, demanding meaning from those enticing scraps of truth. So he tells her, he makes her promise to tell Ivan, he saves the last bit for him. Then he waits, it is the only part he doesn't do well in. His impatience shows in everything he does: the way he eats his burgers, the way he talks, the way he is quick to lose his temper. When Ivan asks to meet he forgets everything he is doing and needs to do. 

He already knows what Ivan will say. Yet he bites his tongue and waits for him to say it. He can feel the flowers in his throat, in his mouth. He swallows as best as he can. It is so much harder than he expects it to be, and it wasn't just because of the flowers. He kisses him goodbye.

There are countless occasions in which Alfred thinks he will die, not as Alfred, but as America. But eighty-five times in which he feels beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he will die as Alfred, longing for someone he cannot have. 

But then the war ends, with a single phone call.

Alfred happens to be in Russia. He happens to know someone who can hack the phone, someone else who can take him where he thinks Ivan would be.

This is it, he thinks. This is his chance to be healed or killed. He never expected Ivan to be sick. Much less to be sick the way he has been for ages. 

He has never been particularly religious, but he finds himself praying. He cannot help but hold out hope.

_God_ , he thinks. _Let me have him_. 

Something comes to mind, something from the pages of the Bible, read aloud to him and Matthew, by either Francis or Arthur:

"Whatever you do, in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus…"

And so he does. He tries, so that God may shed His grace on him. 

_ (Bonus) _

"Alfred! Alfred!"

"Oh. Yeah?" Alfred smiles at his screen. 

Ivan sighs. "Really?"

"I don't know...I think you look better IRL."

" _Please_ don't use I-R-L in speech, Alfred."

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Black Sea -Natasha Blume


End file.
